Old favorite ElectrumSV wallet to be reborn as ElectrumSVP

There’s finally some good news for Electrum wallet fans on BSV. The classic Bitcoin wallet may see a rebirth as “ElectrumSVP” following a Linux-only beta release this week, courtesy of its new developer “Truth Machine” (@cryptorebel_SV).

The ElectrumSVP beta touts improvements, including “back end updates and user-facing enhancements intended to make the wallet safer, more flexible, and more intuitive.” And no, the name is not a typo—the “SVP” is a connection to the old name as well as a reference to SVP, or simplified payment verification, which could see Electrum finally become a “true SVP” wallet (more on that later).

Before anyone gets too excited about downloading a new ElectrumSV for the first time in two years, there are a few cautions. Firstly, it’s Linux-only and it’s still in beta, so only test use is recommended. Installing it will also interfere with existing older versions of ElectrumSV, and it won’t be possible to downgrade back from ElectrumSVP beta to ElectrumSV.

“I would say the reason I started working on ElectrumSV was for myself,” @cryptorebel_SV told CoinGeek. “I just wanted a good wallet to use that is compatible with Linux and gives a lot of power to the user.”

“I think having a wallet like Electrum that gives users a high level of control and precision is important. Beginners may not understand things in Electrum fully at first, but it also gives them an avenue to learn more. I think we should not underestimate people’s ability to learn more about how to use Bitcoin and take control of their own finances. However, Electrum can also be adapted to accommodate the kind of future that conceals addresses or involves P2P direct interactions. The multisig feature, for example, already gets rid of traditional addresses, and you pay directly to a script.”

@cryptorebel_SV said it’s an attempt to revitalize and modernize the Electrum software. He hopes it will encourage other engineers to build their own wallets and services using the Electrum protocol, and nodes/miners to run Electrum servers.

It’s necessary to have wallets like Electrum running on BSV and supporting simplified payment verification as described in the 2009 Bitcoin white paper. If there’s a profit model in operating BSV services, especially after Teranode kicks in, then there’s an incentive to create them for the ElectrumSV ecosystem.

“The hope is to shift it to a more P2P architecture in the future, but it takes steps to get there and to handle SPV properly. Electrum already has a strong ecosystem surrounding it, with a communication protocol in place between nodes and wallets. It could be adapted and evolved to scale. If people see a functioning ElectrumSV wallet and a lot of users using it, they will be more confident to help build out the architecture and evolve the server side to help enable Satoshi’s vision for scaling Bitcoin.”

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A brief history of Electrum and ElectrumSV

ElectrumSV was/is a BSV-specific version of the classic Electrum wallet for Bitcoin, first released in 2011. It gained attention all those years ago for its advanced set of features and as one of the first “lightweight clients” for Bitcoin. At the time, it didn’t require users to download the entire Bitcoin blockchain—something that was already taking users a few days to do in the early 2010s. Electrum relies on access to public, volunteer-operated servers to verify transactions, rather than communicating with BTC’s network of full nodes. Although it’s often referred to as an “SPV wallet,” the debate over whether its model truly aligns with Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision for SPV has been a regular topic.

ElectrumSV was released in 2019 by developers Neil Booth and Roger Taylor (with other contributors), who had previously worked on Electron Cash (the BCH version of Electrum). The most recent version was 1.3.16, released in 2023. However, it’s no longer officially supported and remains (somewhat) functional thanks to a few who’ve continued to maintain servers.

The ElectrumSV account on X remains active, with often-contrarian Bitcoin takes. It has been suggested that factors contributing to the discontinuation of the project included a lack of funding and the work involved in providing updates and support for its more technical features (as well as scammers who also offered “support”). It also endorsed @cryptorebel_SV as a developer for the new version:

Historically, Electrum gained popularity due to its “lightweight” model, which made it significantly faster than full-node Bitcoin wallets. It also featured more advanced features, including multi-sig, multiple wallets, wallet sweeping from private keys, coin splitting (necessary when hard forks on Bitcoin produced new blockchains and assets), hardware wallet support for cold storage, payment requests (invoices), and other more granular controls over transactions.

Most of the popular BSV wallets in daily use today are considered “lightweight” clients, and there are even “true SPV” wallets. However, they lack many of the advanced features listed above.

If @cryptorebel_SV can continue working on the project, the hope is that full versions for Linux, Windows, and macOS will follow. In addition to full SPV and P2P payments, there are also plans for MNEE token support and swaps, as well as privacy enhancements and UTXO splitting. For those of us who’ve been involved with Bitcoin for over a decade (and have used Electrum for the same amount of time), it’s all great news—fingers crossed we can preserve this classic piece of Bitcoin history and continue to use it well into the future.

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